Cape Breton more likely to receive ice pellets and rain this spring, says meteorologist Cindy Day

Tuesday may be the first day of spring, but it’s still a bit early for flowers to be growing outside. So, if you’re looking for some early spring flowers, your best bet is still a local florist, such as David Mackillop, shown here displaying a collection of tulips, lilies and daisies at Mackillop’s Flowers in Sydney. - Greg McNeil

SYDNEY, N.S. — The sun may have shone bright on the last full day of winter, but that doesn’t necessarily mean Cape Breton will enjoy a mild spring.

In fact, forecasters are calling for another blast of wintry weather on Wednesday.

But, fear not, well-known meteorologist Cindy Day says that if recent winter trends continue then the island will likely be spared most of the expected snowfall and will instead receive a mix of sleet and rain.

“Cape Breton’s only been getting about a third of the snow that the systems have had to offer, so say a system is coming into the area with 10 or 15 cm of snow, then you are only getting 3 to 5 cm or 5 to 7 cm before it turns to rain,” said Day, who now serves as the chief meteorologist with the SaltWire Network, whose publications include the Cape Breton Post and the Chronicle Herald.

“It wasn’t necessarily a very snowy winter, but there was a lot of precipitation and we frequently went from snow to ice pellets to rain — so, our precipitation is up, but because of the precipitation profile our snow totals are down.”

The weather profile Day refers to is the path this past winter’s storms have taken as they tracked across Atlantic Canada.

“The jet stream is to the west of Cape Breton, so the good, old-fashioned nor’easter that used to come up along the Eastern Seaboard, stay south of Sable Island and then clip off toward Newfoundland would keep Cape Breton on the colder side of the system and because of the cold air that would sit over Cape Breton you would get as much snow as anybody else,” she said.

“But this year the track has taken that jet stream between the tip of P.E.I and western Cape Breton, so the systems track up through mainland Nova Scotia, then veer off a little bit to the left and then the snow tends to quickly change to ice pellets and back to rain.”

However, Day acknowledges that Mother Nature sometimes has a tendency to deliver winter weather in the spring. And, she says for proof we only have to look back to last March when the CBRM received almost 40 cm of snow over the last three days of the month.

Day doesn’t expect that this year, but she isn’t ruling out a messy spring that is likely to include lots of unsettled weather, pockets of showers, heavy cloud cover and cooler than normal temperatures.

“If we had a mild winter, then before we get to summer you could be very much guaranteed a sloppy, lingering spring and that’s what it looks like we’ll be getting over the next month and a half or so,” she said.

“While our winter wasn’t harsh, our transition is going to be slow and lingering before we get some fairer weather that will come late spring and into summer.”

Summer officially begins on June 21 and for those counting that’s only 93 days away!

david.jala@cbpost.com

When does spring begin?

• The vernal equinox marks the beginning of spring in the northern hemisphere

• In Nova Scotia, the 2018 equinox occurs at 1:15 p.m. ADT on March 20

• During an equinox the sun shines directly over the equator as it moves south to north

• The length of day and night is nearly equal all over the world during an equinox.